


This will linger

by eskandarrohani (erohani)



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Latino Character, M/M, Redemption Ending (Life is Strange 2), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29135604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erohani/pseuds/eskandarrohani
Summary: Daniel drives up to Mount Rainier for his seventeenth birthday. The car isn't the only thing that suffers a breakdown along the way.
Relationships: Daniel Diaz/Chris Eriksen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chaos Theory Zine





	This will linger

**Author's Note:**

> Written for _[Chaos Theory: A Life is Strange Zine](https://twitter.com/LISzine)_.

They’re not even halfway to Mount Rainier National Park when Daniel’s geriatric civic makes a death rattle that even he can’t pretend to ignore.

Chris leans over from where he’s folded up in the passenger seat, craning his neck to frown at the dashboard. “Should we pull over?” he asks, like he does every time the civic makes threatening noises. “It sounds louder than usual.”

On any other day, Daniel would brush off Chris’ worries, because the civic is precisely three thousand years old, and as such is entitled to a certain amount of falling apart. But the thing is that he’s been trying to pump the brakes for the last five seconds to no result save a disconcerting wheeze from down in the underbelly of the civic. Kicking off his birthday camping trip by barreling down the highway in a giant fireball isn’t part of the plan, but it’s definitely on brand.

“You’re making the face,” Chris says. “The _I’m-thinking-of-something-not-awesome_ face.” He lowers the volume of the radio. “The car is broken, isn’t it. Like for real.” It’s not a question, and for all that Chris claims to know all of his faces, Daniel also knows exactly which one is presently crinkling Chris’ freckles and twisting the line of his mouth. The _you’re-thinking-of-something-not-awesome_ face. To be fair, the two faces often went hand in hand.

“How’s the blind spot?” Daniel asks, checking the rearview and flipping the turn signal. Then, for good measure, he punches the hazard lights.

When Chris gives the all clear, they slip into the shoulder. Another failed braking attempt later and Daniel unclaws one hand from the steering wheel and lets it hover over the dashboard, fingers spread. He flicks a glance at Chris, who diligently kills the radio, tightens his seatbelt, and straightens in his seat. Daniel sucks in a long breath through his nose.

It’s been a long time since he’s tried to move anything this big, but the power coursing through him feels familiar and satisfying, like a disused muscle finally being stretched. Daniel breathes out slowly. He focuses. Telekinesis itches like static over the skin, fuzzy, invisible, and a little wrong, but undeniably present. Daniel reaches out with his powers, stretching his grasp over the shape of the civic, and pulls. There’s an endless stretch of road ahead of them and no one around, so he takes his time, decelerating the car until it drifts to a gentle stop. Chris breathes a reverent, “Superwolf.”

Daniel pulls the parking brake and kills the engine. He doesn’t know anything about cars, but he finds himself muttering something about going to check the tires and stuff, and climbs out.

The civic looks like it always does: fourteen thousand years old and in dire need of a wash. The tires seem okay. Daniel kicks each one lightly, because that’s something he’s pretty sure people do, like tapping watermelon to check for ripeness. But Daniel doesn’t know what he’s checking for in a kicked tire, so this is a pointless inspection. An odd impulse to slide underneath the car itches in the back of Daniel’s head, where the sepia-toned memories of Seattle lurk, collecting dust. He drags a hand over his face. Unbidden, the memories shake off their cobwebs, revealing glimpses of Dad-and-Sean shaped silhouettes, Christmas Eves spent eating homemade tamales while marathoning _The Lord of the Rings_ , and the lingering smell of motor oil.

Dad had been restoring a car for Sean’s graduation present, hadn’t he? But he never got to finish working on it and Sean never got a chance to drive it. Daniel chews at the insides of his cheeks. Dad taught Sean how to work on cars. Sean would have known what was wrong with the civic. Daniel kicks the tire again.

The passenger window rolls down and Chris pops his head out. “There’s a repair shop like half a mile from here,” he says, because he’s Chris, quick on his feet in bad situations, able to diffuse tension in the fewest moves. Chris rests his elbows on the window and props his chin in a hand. His blond eyelashes glow gold in the sun. “Want me to call for a tow truck?”

Daniel casts a frown northward, to where the highway melts away into the afternoon sky. He tugs the zipper of his hoodie all the way up. “Yeah. Thanks.” The words come out rough, biting instead of grateful, and Daniel instantly hates himself.

Chris makes a quiet sound, but he makes no move to call the repair shop. Daniel turns back to him, expecting to see his face closed off the way it gets whenever a moment trips and turns sour. Instead, Chris’ eyebrows have knitted together, his expression thoughtful as he studies Daniel. Chris doesn’t often meet people’s gazes, but right now he is, so Daniel stares back. It’s such a soft look.

“What face am I making now?” Daniel asks, half joking. He feels raw, like scabbed knees torn open over gravel or freshly squeezed lemon juice searing through a papercut. He wishes Chris would stop looking at him like that.

“I’m not sure,” Chris says. “It’s like…a very specific sad face. One that you’ve been making a lot lately.” He tilts his head. “If I ask, will you tell me what you’re thinking about?”

The thing is, Daniel’s not completely sure. His thoughts are messy, tangled up in each other and smothered with bad feelings as unyielding as tar. But talking to Chris has never been a bad decision. He says, “I’ll try. But can you call for a tow truck first?”

Chris smiles and ducks back inside the car, phone lighting up across his palm as it unlocks.

Daniel draws close to Chris’ window, not quite ready to return to the driver’s seat. He leans back against the civic, listening to Chris provide an approximation of their location and situation, and letting his head tip back until it rests against the sun-warmed car. The sky overhead is blue. Daniel’s eyes slide shut. A car screams down the highway, chased south by the wind, leaving an applause of vibrating pine needles in its wake. The crescendo of noise blurs out Chris’ voice, sound swelling in Daniel’s ears like when he holds up a seashell to hear the rush of blood in his veins.

Something about the wailing pines and the mottled press of asphalt beneath Daniel’s thin-soled sneakers agitates the bitterness clouding his mood. He opens his eyes and steps once, twice, away from the car. He scowls up at the sky. This isn’t the first busted car he’s encountered on his way to Mount Rainier.

“Hey.” Chris’ door clicks open, and he hops out to join Daniel. He doesn’t touch Daniel, but he stands close enough that the open offer is implied. Gently, Chris asks, “What’re you thinking about?”

Daniel lets out a long exhale. “Sean and I passed an abandoned car on our walk to Mount Rainier,” he replies. “There was chocolate in the window, but he wouldn’t let me take it, even though no one was going to come back for it.” He’s pretty sure he’s told Chris this story before, but for some reason, today, it’s like he’s revealing a secret.

Chris hums deep in his throat. “Sean was a good big brother to you during that time.”

“I guess,” Daniel mutters. Talking about Sean isn’t something that he does often. It seems sacreligious to talk about him like he’s gone—even though he kind of is. “He tried.”

“He was seventeen,” Chris says, and even though he means it in a good way, those words are a knife sliding home between Daniel’s ribs, dislodging a festering tumor and releasing its poison. “He did good.”

“Sixteen.” When Chris shifts, Daniel turns to look at him. Every inch of his skin feels hot and itchy, blistering at the edges from the corrosive emotions eating their way through Daniel’s mind and body. “He was _sixteen_. He was already in prison by the time he turned seventeen—by the time he was our age.” Another car rockets past, kicking up a strong breeze that whips at their faces and refuses to dissipate. Daniel’s heart rattles against the cage of his chest, beat erratic and threatening to shatter bone. “Sean never got to go to prom, or graduate, or drive the car our dad was fixing for him.” He hunches over, chin pressed to his sternum and hands clenched into fists, fingernails dragging at his skin. “He lost everything. And for what?”

“For _you_.” Chris pulls Daniel’s fists into his own open palms, bringing him close. The wind crying in their ears and tangling their hair vanishes. Daniel lifts his head. Chris isn’t smiling, but his eyes are warm. He squeezes Daniel’s hands, coaxing them to unfurl. “It was for you. So you could have a chance. So both of you could have a future.”

Daniel remembers: Sean, the right side of his face wet and pressed into Daniel’s neck, voice wavering like it would give out, _We're not criminals. We're just kids, and we still have time to choose what life we want to live. You're my brother and I love you. It's gonna be all right. Promise._

Something catches in Daniel’s throat and he swallows. For a while, he’s felt that there was an inexplicable tear hanging from his eyelashes. Now that it has a name, it finally comes free, rushing over his cheek. Then another, and another. The suffocating pressure that’s built up in Daniel’s heart eases; it doesn’t completely fade, but it resettles into something more bearable.

He rasps, “What’s the point of having powers if I didn’t do anything to help him back then?”

Chris is quiet for a moment. “What would you have done? Hurt someone? Would Sean have wanted you to do that?”

Daniel doesn’t need to think in hypotheticals. He had been there to see Sean’s defeated look and the resigned way he shook his head when Daniel miserably suggested he clear their path. A deep, persistent ache groans in his shoulders. He asks Chris, “What’s the point of having powers if I _couldn’t_ do anything?”

“What do you think the point is?”

The point?

For all that Daniel’s grandma tries, he doesn’t believe in God or His plan. It always seems like a convenient way to pass the buck, to discard all responsibility for the bad things your shitty choices cause. Daniel doesn’t believe in God, but he is a big believer in choices. That was something bequeathed to him from Sean.

And maybe that could be the answer to Chris’ question, right? That Daniel made a choice. That Sean made a choice. That these actions have consequences.

The loosening knot in Daniel’s chest relaxes further, and he lets out a slow exhale.

“You thought of something smart, didn’t you.” There’s something satisfied in Chris’ expression, a confidence in Daniel that is definitely misplaced. “You don’t have to tell me what it is,” he adds. Then he smiles, a small quirk of the lips that brightens his whole face and makes Daniel’s insides flutter traitorously. “It’s okay to keep some secrets, Superwolf.”

It’s stuffy here, with their faces so close that they’re sharing breaths. Daniel backs away, just half a step, peeling his hands out of Chris’. His palms are clammy, but he’s not sure who was the one sweating. It doesn’t bother him either way.

He rubs a sleeve over his cheeks and raises his eyebrows at Chris. “You better not regret saying that.” Daniel doesn’t think he wants to keep these thoughts to himself forever. But right now, for this moment, it feels right, and he’s startled by the gripping need for Chris to accept that possibility.

“I won’t,” Chris says. He gazes right into Daniel’s eyes, silently promising _I-choose-you_ , _I-choose-you_ , _I-choose-you_.

Daniel flushes, relief and exhilaration tingling across his skin like telekinesis. “Oh,” he manages, heart full and ready for whatever future this choice brings.


End file.
